 The title for today's talk is How Not to Answer a Christian Missionary. I want to be dividing this into three parts. The first segment I hope to address is the dynamics of the conversation. What's going on when you're speaking to a missionary? What's the underlying themes? What are the strategies that they use? What are the strategies that we use to counter their strategies? That's what I hope to accomplish in the first segment of today's talk, today's discussion. In the second segment, I hope to show how we apply those strategies to the subjects of idolatry and atonement. And in the third section, I hope to address how we use these strategies on the subject of the Messiah. So the question, how not to answer a Christian missionary implies that there's a right way, there's a correct way to answer a Christian missionary and an incorrect way to answer a Christian missionary. So before we figure out what is correct and what is incorrect, we have to ask ourselves what it is that we're trying to accomplish when we engage a Christian missionary, when we talk to a Christian missionary. What is our goal? What are we trying to achieve? And whatever is the ultimate goal that we are trying to achieve, what might be secondary goals that we would reach or we would shoot for on the way in our path to this ultimate goal? Now the ultimate goal is simple. This missionary, whoever it is that is initiating the conversation with you, again the title implies that the missionary is initiating the conversation with you, which is what quite often happens. What he's trying to do is get you to reconsider your faith and to make a decision in favor of his faith. Your ultimate goal is, or our ultimate goal when we engage with a missionary is to get him or her to reconsider their faith and to make a decision in favor of our faith. Now you would think one second, this is the person that he came here with the intention of changing you. He's all focused on converting you and you feel you can convert him. And the fact is, yes, by opening this conversation, by trying to convince someone to change their faith, he's opening the door for you. What do I mean by that? He's opening the door for you. Well, what is he going to do? What is his strategy? What is the missionary strategy? What the missionary is going to try to do is he's going to try to present arguments reasoning logic which would lead you towards the Christian faith. So what he wants you to do is to make a decision based on logic, based on reason, based on open-mindedness, being sensible, being reasonable. He wants to empower you. In other words, he's going to present what he considers a logical argument in favor of Christianity. What's standing in his way? Your commitment to Judaism is standing in his way. So what he's trying to do is elevate logic, reason, and open-mindedness and being a person that puts truth above just being the way I was yesterday. Think, be truthful, be honest. So that's often the spirit that the missionary is trying to generate in the conversation. And by doing that, he opened the door for you. He opened the door for you because that's exactly what you want him to do. You want him to use reason, logic, open-mindedness, and reconsider his faith. So he opened the door for you by generating a spirit of thinking. Be reasonable, be logical, ask yourself, be honest with yourself. Try to access that part of yourself that desires truth. He opened the door. And the most important thing is to keep that door open. This is actually the foundation of our conversation with him. The foundation of our conversation with any Christian really is, if we're trying to convince him, is follow the truth. Every human being, God planted into the heart of every human being a sensitivity to truth. No one wants to live a lie. No one wants to be associated with lies with falsehood. We all want truth. We want to follow truth. So by challenging you to reconsider your faith, the missionary opened the door. He opened the door because what he did was he elevated reason, he elevated logic. He said, let's put truth above anything else and you make sure that that door stays open. So that's the first step and that's the foundation of the conversation. The truth is it goes much further than the conversation itself. Because hopefully in one day it might happen that he will reconsider his faith. It's a very, just try to imagine what happens when that happens to a person. Imagine a person, he might be committed and I know people like that, that were committed Christians, committed missionaries. People that were committed to converting other people to Christianity. And they turned around and today they are active members in the Jewish community, members of the Jewish community that contribute to all of us, to help all of us be better Jews. So just think about that path, that path coming from being a committed Christian to being a committed Jew. It's a frightening path. See the way we work psychologically, there are certain things that we have as anchors in our life. And for a person of faith, no matter what faith it is, faith is an anchor in their life. It's something when things are shaky, things aren't working out the way they want, they fall back on their faith. And that comforts them and that's where they feel that, okay, my feet aren't solid ground because I have my faith. Now when you're talking to a person and trying to convince him to abandon his faith, you're basically pulling the ground out from under his feet. You're taking his anchor away. This was his anchor in life. When things get stormy, this is where he turned to. And you're taking that away from him. So what are you giving him in exchange? Now what you're giving him is a different faith. You're giving him Judaism, you're giving him another anchor. And that's beautiful and nice, but it takes time for people to absorb Judaism, especially if they're coming from Christianity. What are they going to hold on to as they travel, as they make that trip? What they're going to hold on to is truth. Truth is the strongest thing. But you have to be able to realize that it's the strongest thing. You have to find strength in truth. And in order to make this journey, they have to realize that God is the God of truth. And when you're asking honest questions, even if you don't have any answers yet, but if you're asking honest questions, you're closer to the God of truth than if you're not asking those questions. If there are honest questions to be asked and you're not asking them, no matter how religious you are and how committed to your religion you are, but if God is the God of truth, he wants truth. And if you're asking honest questions, you can be sure you're together with the God of truth wherever he is. So this is the anchor that you're giving them to travel that path. So the foundation of the conversation, the foundation of the conversation with the missionary is what actually he brings into the conversation. What he brings into the conversation is the elevation of the person's natural draw towards truth, natural inclination towards truth. You want to hold on to that. You want to make sure that door stays open. Let's talk for a minute about what stands in our way, what stands in our way when we're talking to a missionary. What are the obstacles? Now, besides the fact that what I mentioned before is that we're dealing with a lot of information and it takes time for people to process that, but I would divide the obstacles that are in a person's heart if he's a Christian. From coming from Christianity to Judaism, I would divide them into three. There are certain basic biases, mental blocks, which are just simple human bias. I'll break them down into component parts soon. But first, just the general categories, just a certain mental box, just the basic bias that a person has, I don't want to change. Then there are stereotypes. When you're talking to somebody, if he thinks that he knows what you're going to be saying, then often that's how he's going to hear you. They have certain ideas about what Jews do, what Jews believe, what Jews teach, and that's very firmly entrenched in his mind. In fact, in the Christian scriptures, there's quite a bit of misinformation, fake news, about what Jews believe, what Jews believe and why they believe what they believe, and often when I'm speaking to a Christian missionary, he doesn't hear what I'm saying simply because he knows why I'm saying it, and I'll give a few examples as we go on. And the third obstacle that stands in our way is that besides that they have ideas about what we believe and why we believe what we believe, they have an idea about what the conversation is supposed to be about. What is the template of the conversation? There's a template when you write a newsletter, there's going to be a newspaper column, whatever it might be, there's a template of the conversation. They have an idea of what the argument is supposed to be about, and it's completely wrong. So these are the mental blocks that we're facing. We have to realize that underlying behind the argument, he's going to present an argument about a verse in Scripture, a passage in Scripture, but behind that the pillars that are standing behind what he's thinking and what he's arguing are these mental blocks. So let me just break them down. The three general, again, mental, the general mental bias, the stereotypes that they have about Judaism and the template of the conversation. So let me take the time to break them down into component parts. The first one is the obvious, the most obvious one, which is an invested bias. Anyone who is committed to any belief system or any team, whatever it might be, anyone who is associated with something and has been associated with that for a while and committed himself to that something, be it a religion, be it a sports team, be it a company, be it a country, be it a political party, he's biased towards that party. And just like you can't see, it's very difficult for us to see our own faults. When we do something wrong, we don't see that. We don't see it in the same light that other people see what we do wrong. Some people have it to an extreme, some people less of an extreme, but we all have it. To some degree, we don't see our own faults. So if we are committed to something, if we see ourselves as part of something, and in this case the missionary sees himself as part of the Christian religion, he cannot see the faults of the Christian religion. He has a bias towards it, that's just something we have to be aware of. Another bias that we have to deal with is that even though when the missionary is talking to you and he's trying to convince you, he's going to use a logical argument. He's going to use the argument of, it says in Scripture, this and this, and this proves that Jesus is the Messiah. We'll get to some of those arguments later. But even though on the surface there's a logical argument, what's underlying is his own personal spiritual experience. He experienced spiritual elevation, ecstasy, whatever it might be, in Christianity. And that's when you take away the argument, but the spiritual experience is still there. You're not dealing with what's really making him committed to his belief. And again, if your goal is to get him out of Christianity, then it's not enough to deal with the argument. You have to realize that you have that spiritual experience. There's a basic human attitude of gratitude. If he found meaning and he found purpose and he found acceptance in the Christian community and in the Christian faith, then he has positive feelings towards feelings of gratitude and that's not an easy thing to deal with. But again, that might be underlying, that might be the giving strength to his arguments. And then there is something which missionaries use, which is fear and guilt. In other words, they tell them that if you don't believe in Jesus, terrible things are going to happen to you. If not in this world and the next world, they build up a person's... Everyone of us has done things wrong in his life and they build up those feelings of guilt that people have and they say there's no way for you to deal with that guilt only through the services of Jesus. So people are dealing with fear and guilt and if you're going to take away their arguments and you're not dealing with the fear and guilt, you didn't start talking to them. So these, in short, are more mental blocks, but these are some of the basic mental blocks that are underlying that stand behind the argument of the Christian missionary and these are obstacles that stand in your way when you're trying to get the missionary to see things your way. And these actually are the most difficult obstacles to deal with because these are deeply embedded in the person's psyche and the way he's thinking and the way he sees reality all around him. The second category of obstacles that we come across when we're dealing with the missionary is stereotypes. They have a certain picture of Jews and Judaism. What Jews believe, why they believe what they believe, what the mentality of Jewish people are and actually I have quite a long list over here. Number one, Jews don't think for themselves. The rabbis tell them what to think. There's a book that was sent around, it actually came to Lakewood to basically every house in Lakewood and the kids had a good time burning those books. But the title of the book was Ten Jews Who Thought For Themselves. These were ten people who were biologically Jewish that converted to Christianity. And the implication of the title is that these Jews thought for themselves. There's ten Jews that thought for themselves. The other sixteen million Jews don't think for themselves. That's the implication and that's what they believe. They believe Jews don't think for themselves. Jews are told what to think by the rabbis. The rabbis don't let you read Scripture. They point to our Tanakh. If you open a regular, you know, Khomeish Tanakh, five books in Moses, there's rabbinical commentary all over the place. See, the rabbis don't let you read a couple of verses without them getting their two words in there. The rabbis don't let you read the book for yourself. The rabbis are hiding information from us that these are ideas that they have about Jews, the Jewish community and the way Jews think or don't think. Another idea that they have about Jews is that Jews are somehow, I don't know how to put this, spiritually inferior. What do I mean? Is that the moral teachings of Jesus, people are blown away by those moral teachings of Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself, which I actually took from Artoro. But isn't that such a beautiful teaching? How could it be that Jews are not just blown away and bowled over by these beautiful teachings? They're missing something. There's something wrong about them. There's something different about them. And the way they explain it is that Jews are legalistic. Legalistic means that their idea of religion is, and this is what they're thinking about us, is it's all about rules and regulations, what we are allowed to do, when we're supposed to stand, when we're supposed to sit, when we're supposed to do this, when we're supposed to do that. And it's not about a relationship. It's not about moral beauty. It's not about ethical beauty. It's not about being an elevated person. So this is an idea of how they're thinking about us. They're thinking that we're legalistic. We're people that are very much rules and regulations. They see Judaism, in a certain sense, as a dead religion. And I'm going to take a little aside to talk about that. I one time had the experience of bringing a Christian missionary to a shul, to Daven Minchah. He didn't Daven Minchah. He sat on the side and he watched how people were Daven Minchah. Now this wasn't the most exciting Hasid-i-Shastibl where everyone was Davening with the most fervor and the most... This was a regular average Minchah. And he sort of came to tell me, look, I'm right. Look how legalistic this was. They just went through the motions. They turned all the right pages. And the appropriate responses, yes, it was nice. No one was talking by Davening. But that's not Davening. This is the argument that he gave him. So I'll just, as an aside, what I told him at the time is, what is prayer? So his idea of prayer is pouring out your heart to God, telling God all your problems, bringing all your sins to God. Is that the foundation of prayer? What's the foundation? What's the underlying foundation of prayer? So what do you want? What do you mean? I come to pour out my heart. It's an unbelievable spiritual experience. So he's telling me that prayer is an experience. It's almost like entertaining me coming to feel something and walk out. Now I felt that thing. Is that what it is? So he tells me, what do you think prayer is supposed to be? Yes, prayer is supposed to be a beautiful spiritual experience. You're supposed to walk into the shul, Davening, and feel unbelievably elevated. But if you walked in and you walked out and that didn't happen, it's still possible that you prayed. It's still possible that you prayed. The underlying theme of prayer is to come into contact, bring your mind into focus to one truth. That God is the boss and I'm a servant. And if you walked into shul and you walked out of shul, having encountered that idea, that truth, then we could say that you prayed. But if you walked into shul and had the greatest spiritual experience, but you didn't encounter that truth, then no matter how fantastic your spiritual experience was, you didn't pray. You didn't pray. It was about you. It wasn't about God. So even if a person goes through the motions, but if he came into contact with that idea, in fact, when you go through the motions following the rules and the regulations, you're forced. It's not about me. I have to follow the rules. So in a certain sense, you're forced to come into contact with that idea. But again, there's a little bit of a side track. The point over here is they view Judaism as legalistic and dead religion. Another stereotype, Jews are biased against Jesus. The name Jesus just right away, a negative reaction. In fact, some of them will take it even further that the entire Judaism is a negative. I've seen missionaries write this. Judaism is a religion that arose as a negative reaction to Christianity. Jews don't believe in the Trinity because Christians do believe in the Trinity. Jews redefined the concept of Messiah so as to exclude Jesus. There's another stereotype, another idea that they have in their head, which is completely false. But again, this is what's standing behind their arguments, their thought process, their logic. Another stereotype, another idea what they have about Judaism is that the reason Jews reject Christianity is because they misunderstand Christianity. Jews are looking at the anti-Semitism of the Christian church over the years. They don't fully understand what Christianity, true Christianity, what they call true Christianity is all about. And it's just based on misunderstandings of Christianity. So there are these underlying stereotypes which have to be addressed if we're going to successfully get to the heart of the person that we're trying to talk to. It's not enough to deal with their arguments. We have to deal with the thought process that comes behind the arguments that's standing behind the arguments and that's giving the arguments strength. The third category of obstacles, of mental blocks, of challenges that we have as we're talking to a missionary trying to persuade him is what he believes or she believes is the template of the conversation. In other words, what is this all about? So usually the conversation is about scripture. It's about Tanakh. That's the one thing we supposedly have in common and what I mean supposedly have in common is because even though it's actually the same book and some of them actually know how to read it in Hebrew and some of them could look even in a Jewish translation but because they're coming from such a different perspective they see a different book. But that aside, the one thing we have in common is the Tanakh and usually the conversation centers on the Tanakh. So one thing that comes right away to the forefront is they are convinced that the conversation is about their proof texts. The texts in Tanakh that they use to support the, quote-unquote, the Messiahship of Jesus, the claims of the church and they believe that this is what the conversation is all about. I one time sat with a Christian, he was a very nice fellow and he told me that he was very well read on the polemics of the church and the rabbis and the various debates that went on through the years. He knows a lot about them. He told me he's well read about the subjects. I told him, fantastic, now we can have a conversation. I want to ask you a question. I could tell you, I told him, what you're going to tell me. I could tell you that you're going to tell me Isaiah 714, Isaiah 53, Jeremiah 31. Those are your proof texts. I want you to tell me now what texts from the scripture, what passages from the Bible, from the Jewish Bible I'm going to use to establish my point, to present my argument. So he said to me, well you're going to tell me that in Isaiah 714 the word is not virgin. It's not basula. It's Alma. It's a different word. And you're going to tell me that Isaiah 53 is not talking? I said one second. Those are your proof texts. Those are the texts that you are using to support your position. What are the texts, which passages in the Bible, which verses, which chapters will I be using to present my position? So he said, yes, you're going to tell me that Isaiah 53 is not talking about Jesus. He didn't know what I was talking about. But that's not where the Bible begins. It's not where it ends. In a different occasion I sat with a missionary and I mentioned the Book of Job. So he said, oh I know the Book of Job. In my Redeemer, Liveth, the Book of Job is like 40 chapters in it. He knows one verse in the Book of Job, which is not even one of them. It's like such a weak proof for them. But that was, I know the Book of Job because that's the one verse in the book that he could pull out as some perhaps half hearted support for Jesus. So that's mistake number one or a problem that they have. They have this idea in their head that this is what the conversation is about. It's about their proof texts. And if you're only going to respond by showing how Isaiah 53 isn't talking about what they want to believe it's talking about, he still thinks that that's what the conversation is about. You didn't change its perspective. You might have won an argument, but you didn't change the underlying template. In a similar vein, another template idea is they look at the Tanakh, the Book of Scripture as a, it's like it's a mystery book. They have to find the Messiah. They're being politically correct. They'll say the Messiah if they're being up, you know, up front, they're going to tell you to find Jesus. It's like, you know, my kids have, where's Waldo? We have to find, oh, there he is. That's how they look at the Tanakh in a certain sense. They have to find the reference to Jesus. We have to find that spot where we could find him. Now we could turn the page. We found him on this page. Now it's time for the next page. And again, that's a mistake. That's not what the Tanakh is all about. So again, even if you're going to answer and say, no, that's not Jesus, still you didn't address the underlying thought process behind the argument. Another mistake they make, and this is, they think that, here they come over to a secular Jew. Read Isaiah 53. Here, they'll give you Isaiah 53, just one chapter out of the book. Read it. Who is this talking about? And what they're basically telling you is that the secular Jew who never read the Book of Isaiah, didn't read the Book of Isaiah, didn't read the Book of Genesis. He never opened the Bible in his life. He's qualified to render a life-changing decision on the basis of his reading of one translated, or I say mistranslated chapter. This is a big book. There's a lot of meaning to it. There's a lot of weight to it. You wouldn't trust a doctor who just read one page in the medical book. Why would you make a life-changing decision on the basis of one read of a passage? But again, that's a template of the conversation. In their mind, if you read several passages, the passages that point to Jesus, the appropriate passages, in their mind, now you're qualified to render a decision. You're okay. You're good to go. And that's a mistake. In order to get them to see that they're wrong, it's not enough to show that they misread this passage. You have to show that the book is much deeper than they think it is. Another common mistake that they have is they like to blur the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. They like to make it as, why don't you accept Jesus as your personal savior? Or why is Jesus not your Messiah? As if our concept of the Messiah is exactly the same, the question is who it is. In other words, that's blurring the distinctions. Judaism has a completely different concept of the Messiah than Christianity. It's not a matter of identity, what nameplate we should put on. There are vast differences between Judaism and Christianity, and the missionary in his own mind, those distinctions are blurred and fused together. He doesn't see those distinctions so clearly. It's important to make those distinctions clear. And another problem, the last one on this category, is Scripture is a document that stands alone. In other words, there's no context to Scripture. Scripture is a book that anyone could read it, no matter when, where, and how. And what I mean by a context to Scripture, there are a lot of words in Scripture that have, they're very rich in meaning, but they mean different things to different people. The first verse in the Bible, in the beginning God created heaven and earth. That word, God, what does it mean to you? What does it mean to you? Did the author of the book expect you to read it not knowing what that word means? He gave the book to people here, take the book, read it. Without giving them any other information, there was no background to it. You're supposed to open the book in the beginning, and you don't know what the word God means. You have to come to Matthew to find out what that word means. Is that really how you're supposed to read the book? And this is a mistake that they make. The Protestant Church prides itself on its motto as Sola Scriptura, which is Latin for just Scripture. Scripture alone and nothing else. That's a mistake. That's a mistake. The book was never meant to be read that way. God didn't give us the book in order that we opened the book. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, and we don't know what the word God means. Not only did he expect us to know what the word means, God gave the book to a people after he sealed a covenant with them, after he took us out of land of Egypt, after the miracles of the Exodus, after the revelation at Sinai. He expected that word not only to have a meaning to us, but we should see ourselves as standing in a covenantal relationship with God. We have a deep and lasting relationship, a meaningful relationship with that God. When we read that word in the book, it talks to our heart. It means something to us. It's not a blank word, which we have to fill in. So there's another mistake that they have. So in short, what our strategy is, is that when you're dealing with a missionary, when you're talking to a missionary, realize what the mental blocks are, what the mental blocks, the biases, the stereotypes, the templates that he has that are supporting his arguments, and it's not enough to argue with his arguments. You can win the battle and lose the war. If you're going to take his proof text and show him how he mistranslated it, then he's going to walk away telling himself, perhaps I mistranslated it, but he still thinks that the discussion is all about his proof text. He still thinks that Jews are legalistic, because the only thing he had to tell me was that I mistranslated the verse. He didn't tell me anything about the meaning that you find in Judaism. Why are you Jewish, because it's a mistranslation? He still thinks that Jews are anti-Christian, because that was the extent of your conversation with him. It didn't go further than that, except knocking his understanding of the particular passage. You have to go beyond that. You have to go way beyond that, and you have to shake up those stereotypes. You have to shake up those templates. You have to give him a different perspective of what he thinks about the Jewish scriptures, a different perspective of what he thinks about Jews and Judaism are all about. I spoke about the ultimate goal would be to get the missionary to come around and to see things your way, to see things as Jews see them. It's a gigantic task. It's not something that's easy to do, but there are goals that we could aim for on the road. Goal number one is what I spoke about first, which is realized. He should realize, he should walk away realizing that you're someone who values truth. You're someone who truth is important to you, and if he asks a good question, honor the question, respect the question, and you should truly respect the question, because if it's coming from a place of honesty, it deserves respect. That's the only way he's going to be able to go any further. Your primary secondary goal, means your primary goal, your ultimate goal is to get him out of Christianity, but your primary secondary goal is to keep the door open. He should follow up with you, he should follow up with someone else. He should want to ask more questions. He's not going to want to ask more questions if he didn't sense from you that truth is your highest value, that here's a place to come. The Jewish people are a place to come to learn truth. That's step number one. Step number two would be is he might not understand where you're coming from, but he has to see that Scripture, that Judaism is alive to you, that Tanach is alive to you, that the verses are alive to you, that the passages in Scripture talk to your heart, and they mean something to you, that Judaism is not a dead religion. You have to break that stereotype. It's not legalistic. He might not understand why you believe what you believe, but he has to see your confidence in what you believe, and he has to see that the confidence is not rooted in the fact that, oh, that happens to be the right translation. Yes, that is the right translation, and that's the truth, but the experience of the truth, the beauty of the truth, the beauty of connecting to God through the truth. Next would be to get them to see Scripture in a different light. There are other passages in Scripture. Get them to understand that there are other passages in Scripture besides the passages they're focusing on. Get them to hear Deuteronomy 4.35, Ata Haresa La Das. God's talking to the Jewish people, unto you it was shown in order that you know, Kiashem al-Lakim, that the Lord is God. Ain al-Mu'vada, that there is none else. How foundational that text is to the narrative of Scripture as a whole, how foundational it is to your life. He has to feel that. He has to feel and realize that there's something more over here than Isaiah 7.14 about the virgin birth. And ideally, you can get his very best the very same proof texts that he's using once he gets to see them in a different light, once he gets to see them in the context of Scripture as a whole, in the context of the passages around it. To see Scripture in a different light, to see Scripture that they should get the message of Scripture, that they should feel the heart of the author. If you can get them to see that, then they're most of the way they're already. If they could feel the heart of the author of Scripture you have to help them see it. You have to first see yourself. You have to find the tools. What is the heart of the author? What is the message that the author is trying to tell you? And if you get them to feel that together with you, you're moving along. You're most of the way there.